


Hiding

by mrshopkirk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gay Bucky Barnes, Gay Steve Rogers, M/M, Men Crying, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Relapse, Steve Rogers Feels, Stucky - Freeform, Swearing, men kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 04:52:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11223714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrshopkirk/pseuds/mrshopkirk
Summary: The Avengers are under government control and forced to follow orders, which include Steve and Bucky having to hide their relationship. Bucky is willing to leave it all behind but is Steve?





	Hiding

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr.

“You can't come out,” Fury says. “It's not that I disapprove and lots of people are okay with it but these are trying times. They need someone virtuous to look up to and that someone is you.”

“So you're saying a gay man can't be a virtuous man? It makes him less virtuous because he loves me?” The anger seeps through Bucky’s voice.

“I can only help the world when someone helps me, Nick, and that someone for me is Bucky and he needs me too. We had to hide this for so long already. Please, just let us have this.” Steve tries but he already knows it’s to no avail.

“I’m sorry, Steve, but I have my orders and those are for me to tell you both to keep your relationship under the wraps.” By the look on Fury’s face Steve can already tell there’s more to come. He sucks in a breath and braces himself. “And Bucky is recruited as an Avenger. Effective immediately.”

“No. Absolutely not.” His voice isn’t even raised but simply making a statement. “It’s insane. He’s still recovering.”

Bucky is nailed to his spot in the conference room, the eyes of the Avengers on him. Steve is standing between him and Fury, effectively shielding him from the danger Fury brings. Anger is radiating from every inch of his body. The discussion between Steve and Fury becomes heated, as Steve is unyielding. But the discussion ends in favor of the strongest, in this case the government.

“It’s the Avengers or prison and possibly the death sentence! Take it or leave it, Rogers!” Fury’s voice resonates through the room, sucking the air out of the lungs of everyone in there.

Steve spins around and pulls Bucky in his arms, almost crushing him.

“It’s okay, Stevie. It’s okay. We knew there would be consequences.” Bucky nods to Fury. “I’ll take the deal.”

 

 

Standing on this stage, Steve feels like he's selling war bonds again. Only this time he’s selling the people a lie that there is nothing to be afraid of, that there is no terrorist or war threat. The propaganda image they're being fed is Captain America front and center with his troop of Avengers that have his back. And in that troop stands a very nervous Bucky that does not want to be here amongst other things. He wants off the stage, he wants out of these combat clothes, he wants to be far away from guns, he wants to be far away from conflicts.

What he does want is very simple. He wants to be close to Steve. He wants to hold his hand. He wants to hide in his embrace when things get rough and his anxiety gets the better of him. He wants to comfort Steve when his shoulders almost break under the weight of his responsibilities. He wants a quiet life. Maybe they can go back to Bucharest. He can teach Steve Romanian. It's a beautiful language, a language that feels like home, like a new beginning. They can go to the market and when they get home he can feed him plums while he's lying in his arms on the couch and lick the juice that trickles down his chin and make sweet love to each other. The life Bucky carved out for Steve and him in his mind and heart is poisoned by the noise coming from the speakers and the crowd. Words like hate, protection, bombs, camps, bans, guns, more money, more taxes. They seep through his thoughts and replace all the words of love.

Steve quickly throws a glance over his shoulder at Bucky and briefly wonders how eyes as blue as his can look so dark. He’s staring at the floor of the stage, all tense. All Steve wants to do is take Bucky's hand and walk off the stage. Sam gives him a small nod, enough to ensure Steve he's got this. He’s got Bucky’s back. When he faces the crowd again and plasters a smile on his face and nods at the appropriate times, his mind wonders to what will happen when they get back to the compound. He’s afraid of the backlash of this show, because that is all this is, a show. Bucky will yell at everything and everyone about what a farce this is, the hypocrisy of it all, how they're being used, how unfair it is that Sam and Clint and Scott and Wanda only get amnesty if they do as they're told.

And everyone will be still and let his rage roam the tower and compound freely because the always quiet Bucky Barnes is right. He voices what everyone thinks. Bucky isn't hurting anyone anymore, not physically and definitely not emotionally or at least not intentionally. But the truth itself hurts. And if there is one thing that can crack the façade Nat has constructed carefully for herself during all her life, it's Bucky's sharp opinion about how the world is treating them, like animals, fighting machines, monkeys in a circus that have to dance when they're told. It had startled Bucky when she hit him that one time. She slapped him, hard. She hit his chest over and over again, yelling at him to shut up which he did. She kept hitting him and yelling at him though he had been silent for minutes already. And he let her… he took all the hits. It had hurt of course. The serum heals wounds but doesn't numb pain and Nat can throw a punch.

“I'm not a monkey! I'm a person! I'm not a machine! I'm a person! I'm not an animal! I'm a person! I'm a person! I'm a person. I'm a person… I'm…” She was slumped against Bucky who just stood still. “Why don't they let me be a person?”

Bucky had looked in her eyes. He had thought there would be tears but she was still biting them back. They did her so much injustice, he thought to himself. They trained her to not feel and she tried so hard to break free from the harness they put her in. Every time she picked the lock some other government or agency put their own in its place.

 

“I'm begging you, Sam, please take it.” Tears are streaming down Bucky's face. Sam and Bucky have become a lot closer over the past years, building a friendship and trust but this is something new to Sam. Bucky has never broken down in front of him and he has never said anything even remotely close to what he is saying, no asking, pleading now.

“Please take the shield, Sam. Please take it from him.”

“Bucky, I can't just pick up Steve’s shield. You don't know what you're saying. What you're asking.”

The desperate look in Bucky's eyes is unsettling. The utter despair, the last hope he’s clinging to. “I'm not saying anything, Sam.” His voice is soft. “I'm not asking anything,” he croaks out the words. “I'm begging.” Sam’s heart breaks together with Bucky's voice. “I'll get down on my knees and beg, Sam. I’m not too proud for that. Please, take his shield. You can do it. I know you can.” Bucky is clutching to Sam’s arm.

“Get up! Don't you dare get on your knees, Buck.” Sam is frantic and trying to pull him to his feet pulling with all his might but the latter isn't in a hurry to leave his last resort, the bottom of despair, his place on the floor. “You bow down to no-one, you hear! Get up. Get up! You are done begging and getting on your knees for someone. You hear me? Those days are gone.”

“This is me, Sam, this is my choice to beg and crawl. I'll beg with my dying breath to save him. I'll crawl to the end of the world to save him.” So Bucky sinks to the floor again, hanging his head in defeat. He lost. He’s out of options.

Sam sinks to his knees next him. “You're your own man now, Barnes. If you want to do this, I'm not stopping you but I'll be damned if I leave you alone.”

“Will you take it?” he whispers.

“I can't.”

Bucky doesn't know how long he's been on the floor but his bones ache, his muscles are sore. Sam is still sitting next him, slumped against a wall and opens an eye. “You read to get up now?”

 

Before every mission Bucky pleads with Steve to not go, to stop fighting, to run away together. Every time Steve’s heart breaks because he doesn't do it. Bucky is always by his side, going on every mission and so far has taken every goddamn bullet that was meant for Steve. He cried out in pain the first times. His face contorted in pain the next times. He gritted his teeth the following times. Now he just sucks in a deep breath and continues on auto-pilot, neglecting his wellbeing.

Bucky cries before every mission. Stress, fear of dying, fear of losing Steve, fear of losing any teammate, disappointment that the love of his love rather picks up a gun than hold his hand. He’s sick and tired of boarding the Quinjet with red eyes so he picks up the black camouflage paint he found in the hangar. This he remembers. It hides him. Hides his true self. He doesn't want to fight as Bucky Barnes anymore. If he has to fight he'll fight as a soldier. Shock rippled through the jet when they saw him exciting the elevator and board the jet. No-one but Sam dared to address him. It all reminded them too much of the Winter Soldier and were not sure whether he was slowly creeping back or not.

“You okay, man?”

“Fine.”

“Bucky?” Steve hesitantly asks.

“I don't want to see my reflection in a window and see the man I want to be again holding a gun. If you want me to hold a gun then I give you a soldier.”

“I don't want you to hold a gun, Buck,” Steve all but whispers.

“Everyone by your side holds a gun, Steve. Look around you.” Again, the ugly truth is spoken by Bucky.

There is no real shift in power or authority within their team but a change comes anyway. Bucky becomes the first one to exit the Quinjet every mission. Most of the time he is the first one to take a life. He became more and more distant on the jet. Maybe distant isn’t the right word. The loving Bucky that had resurfaced with the help, patience and love of Steve is left behind at the compound. A soldier takes his place amongst the Avengers every mission. He is effective. He is brutal. He is ruthless.

The more missions they go on, the more they all worry. At the compound Bucky is full of dreams and hopes about a future with Steve, who can’t help but smile at all the plans his lover makes. He is affectionate, stealing kisses all the time, trying to make up for lost times. But the missions take their toll and it shows in private as well. It takes him longer to start smiling again, to let Steve touch him again, and nightmares become more frequent.

“Bucky! Stick to the mission!” Steve screams over the rattling of Hydra’s gunfire. The scene that unfolds before him will leave him sleep deprived for weeks.

Bucky turns around, eyes cold, voice flat. He is wearing the camouflage paint around his eyes as he always does nowadays but in his hand he holds the muzzle from his past. “You are my mission.”

Steve grabs his forearm. “What the hell, Buck?!”

“You have your uniform. I have mine.” He places the muzzle on his face and walks straight out in the open, firing at everything that moves.

Nat sits with her head in his hands. She hears a loud crying Steve that chokes out every word and makes no sense whatsoever but it doesn’t matter. She knows what plagues everyone’s mind. Is the Winter Soldier slowly scratching its way back to the surface? Or is Bucky creating another personality for himself to cope with the blood and death every mission brings? Whatever it is, it’s dangerous territory Bucky finds himself in. It has everyone worried.

“Help him, Nattie. Please?”

Nat lifts her head and looks at Steve. “What do you expect me to do, Steve? I’m sorry but the only one that can help Bucky is you. He’ll take every bullet for you. He’ll die for you. He’ll do anything for you. He’ll become the Winter Soldier for you.” She sighs before softly continuing. “The question is, how much are you prepared to do for him?”

 

“He looks good, doesn’t he?” Bucky asks Steve while they’re lying on the couch together. Bucky is splayed across Steve’s body, enjoying the firm grip his lover has on him. Steve’s lips kiss his hair every once in a while, his fingers drawing nonsense patterns on his back. Steve loves to draw those content noises and purrs from Bucky.

“He does indeed. He’ll do a great job,” Steve says.

“Do you miss it?” Bucky keeps his eyes on the television, still afraid that something as real as Steve will slip through his fingers. He ghosted through his thoughts in his frozen and shocked brain too all that time ago.

“As long as I have you I don’t need anything else, sweetheart.”

Bucky crawls up Steve’s body and gets lost in the feeling of his lips on his. Steve’s hands lazily rub up and down his body and end up in his hair. While they get lost in each other the television plays in the background.

“Sam Wilson is the new Captain America.”


End file.
